Magazine Tries To Redefine Fatherhood

What is a father? An authoritarian figure, the breadwinner, the stoic, Playboy-reading member of the family? No more, say the publishers of a new bimonthly magazine called fathers.

``Fatherhood is ripe for redefinition,`` said editor Harry Stein. ``It`s a topic that friends can talk about honestly. The word itself is neutral.``

On sale this month, fathers is temporarily being put together from the offices of Veterans, a newspaper edited and published by Jeff Stein, who is also president of fathers. He and Harry Stein are not related.

The new magazine is intended to deal with the different aspects of fatherhood without being overly emotional, and to be an outlet for men that they never had before.

It will consist of regular columns on fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, and articles and tips on books and food as well as general information. There also will be pieces about men and their fathers.

The editorial staff is entirely made up of fathers and most, but not all, contributors are men.

``The editorial challenge is to not make this a male version of a women`s magazine,`` Harry Stein said. ``Men have to hide emotional issues behind a veil of humor. We have to be somewhat self-mocking.

``We don`t want gooey first person accounts about how wonderful fatherhood is. We want to handle traditional men`s areas such as fishing and sports through fatherhood.

``Playboy appealed to an image of self that doesn`t exist now,`` he said. ``Fathers is the only one to address men`s image of self today. Esquire (appeals to today`s fatherhood self-image) somewhat, but draws from more complicated demographics, also having to cater, for example, to the single man.

``People are so imprisoned by a romantic, sensitive, earnest image of fatherhood that is dishonest. It`s an enormously complex, frustrating, hair- raising experience that we can explore fully in all dimensions,`` Harry Stein said.

He said the honesty and accurate portrayal of what fatherhood is about is what makes television`s The Cosby Show such a success.

In an interesting comment on social changes, fathers president Jeff Stein said the magazine is as much a product of the women`s movement because society has changed its attitude toward family relations.

``These are times in which more women are moving into the work force, and because of the women`s movement, family dynamics have changed as have the relationship between men and their families,`` he said.

``Men are doing things that they wouldn`t have five years ago.``

One aim of the magazine is to encourage men to be more involved with their families and to overcome what Jeff Stein called the ``Dustin Hoffman, Kramer vs. Kramer image`` of a man who cannot cook or do anything.

``It isn`t true any more,`` he said, but men are ``on the cusp`` of overcoming that old perception.

Harry Stein said there is a need for more discussion about fatherhood. ``For example, there is a lot more discussion of fundamental issues of career and fathers.``

He said the post-World War II image of the father was that of the macho male who read Playboy and rarely got involved in matters of the home, that being the women`s domain. Because of that, he said, there is ``an enormous anger toward fathers`` in the generation that grew up in the 1950s and 1960s.

``(Fathers) have felt guilty about this, about spending more time at the office and neglecting the family. We must begin to enable men to overcome the stereotype.``

Both Steins say they have gotten good initial responses to fathers, which has an initial printing run of 25,000 copies. Harry Stein acknowledges that perhaps not all men are willing to take on such a publication.

``Men in general don`t like to read such things. One does tend to assume in a male way that he knows everything,`` he said.

But he said the aim is also to gain women readers.

``The magazine will offer insight to women about what goes on inside the heads of men, their mates.

``Women have had so many avenues for expression that men have never had. The result has been a placating of women or a formless anger from men, therefore this magazine will speak very much to women.

``Fathers is an amalgam of parenting and men`s magazines,`` Stein said, ``and thus difficult to prejudge. We expect people to laugh in the shock of recognition.``